Human life, therefore, is a mission; the mission of reaching that aim, by incessant activity upon the path toward it and perpetual warfare against the obstacles opposed to it."-- MAZZINI.
The Home: "For something that abode endued With temple-like repose; an air Of life's kind purposes pursued With ordered freedom, sweet and fair; A tent, pitched in a world not right, It seemed, whose inmates, every one, On tranquil faces bore the light Of duties beautifully done." -- COVENTRY PATMORE.
=The Experience of the Past.=--By many experiments, over many differing "folk-ways," the modern family has arrived.

We name it now "monogamic," and mean by the name the union of one man and one woman, in aim at least for life, and their children.

Whereas once it was the rule of a tribe or clan which determined every detail of sex-relationship, a rule represented either by the mother or the father, it is now an individualistic choice of two adult persons only, socially legalized by a required certificate and ceremony.

Whereas once it was the basis of all social order and mutual aid, it is now one of several institutions inherited from the past, and is itself subject to the state, which is the chief heir to our social inheritance.

The family, however, is now, as it has always been, the interior, vital, and so far indispensable social relationship, beginning, as it does, at first hand the training of each individual toward membership in society-at-large.